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When
the
pressure
of
work
began
to
lessen
,
and
he
found
himself
,
in
the
lengthening
afternoons
,
able
to
reach
home
somewhat
earlier
,
he
noticed
that
the
little
drawing
-
room
was
always
full
and
that
he
and
his
wife
seldom
had
an
evening
alone
together
.
When
he
was
tired
,
as
often
happened
,
she
went
out
alone
;
the
idea
of
giving
up
an
engagement
to
remain
with
him
seemed
not
to
occur
to
her
.
She
had
shown
,
as
a
girl
,
little
fondness
for
society
,
nor
had
she
seemed
to
regret
it
during
the
year
they
had
spent
in
the
country
.
He
reflected
,
however
,
that
he
was
sharing
the
common
lot
of
husbands
,
who
proverbially
mistake
the
early
ardors
of
housekeeping
for
a
sign
of
settled
domesticity
.
Alexa
,
at
any
rate
,
was
refuting
his
theory
as
inconsiderately
as
a
seedling
defeats
the
gardener
’
s
expectations
.
An
undefinable
change
had
come
over
her
.
In
one
sense
it
was
a
happy
one
,
since
she
had
grown
,
if
not
handsomer
,
at
least
more
vivid
and
expressive
;
her
beauty
had
become
more
communicable
:
it
was
as
though
she
had
learned
the
conscious
exercise
of
intuitive
attributes
and
now
used
her
effects
with
the
discrimination
of
an
artist
skilled
in
values
.
To
a
dispassionate
critic
(
as
Glennard
now
rated
himself
)
the
art
may
at
times
have
been
a
little
too
obvious
.
Her
attempts
at
lightness
lacked
spontaneity
,
and
she
sometimes
rasped
him
by
laughing
like
Julia
Armiger
;
but
he
had
enough
imagination
to
perceive
that
,
in
respect
of
the
wife
’
s
social
arts
,
a
husband
necessarily
sees
the
wrong
side
of
the
tapestry
.
In
this
ironical
estimate
of
their
relation
Glennard
found
himself
strangely
relieved
of
all
concern
as
to
his
wife
’
s
feelings
for
Flamel
.
From
an
Olympian
pinnacle
of
indifference
he
calmly
surveyed
their
inoffensive
antics
.
It
was
surprising
how
his
cheapening
of
his
wife
put
him
at
ease
with
himself
.
Far
as
he
and
she
were
from
each
other
they
yet
had
,
in
a
sense
,
the
tacit
nearness
of
complicity
.
Yes
,
they
were
accomplices
;
he
could
no
more
be
jealous
of
her
than
she
could
despise
him
.
The
jealousy
that
would
once
have
seemed
a
blur
on
her
whiteness
now
appeared
like
a
tribute
to
ideals
in
which
he
no
longer
believed
.
.
.
.
Glennard
was
little
given
to
exploring
the
outskirts
of
literature
.
He
always
skipped
the
“
literary
notices
”
in
the
papers
and
he
had
small
leisure
for
the
intermittent
pleasures
of
the
periodical
.
He
had
therefore
no
notion
of
the
prolonged
reverberations
which
the
“
Aubyn
Letters
”
had
awakened
in
the
precincts
of
criticism
.
When
the
book
ceased
to
be
talked
about
he
supposed
it
had
ceased
to
be
read
;
and
this
apparent
subsidence
of
the
agitation
about
it
brought
the
reassuring
sense
that
he
had
exaggerated
its
vitality
.
The
conviction
,
if
it
did
not
ease
his
conscience
,
at
least
offered
him
the
relative
relief
of
obscurity
:
he
felt
like
an
offender
taken
down
from
the
pillory
and
thrust
into
the
soothing
darkness
of
a
cell
.
But
one
evening
,
when
Alexa
had
left
him
to
go
to
a
dance
,
he
chanced
to
turn
over
the
magazines
on
her
table
,
and
the
copy
of
the
Horoscope
,
to
which
he
settled
down
with
his
cigar
,
confronted
him
,
on
its
first
page
,
with
a
portrait
of
Margaret
Aubyn
.
It
was
a
reproduction
of
the
photograph
that
had
stood
so
long
on
his
desk
.
The
desiccating
air
of
memory
had
turned
her
into
the
mere
abstraction
of
a
woman
,
and
this
unexpected
evocation
seemed
to
bring
her
nearer
than
she
had
ever
been
in
life
.
Was
it
because
he
understood
her
better
?
He
looked
long
into
her
eyes
;
little
personal
traits
reached
out
to
him
like
caresses
—
the
tired
droop
of
her
lids
,
her
quick
way
of
leaning
forward
as
she
spoke
,
the
movements
of
her
long
expressive
hands
.
All
that
was
feminine
in
her
,
the
quality
he
had
always
missed
,
stole
toward
him
from
her
unreproachful
gaze
;
and
now
that
it
was
too
late
life
had
developed
in
him
the
subtler
perceptions
which
could
detect
it
in
even
this
poor
semblance
of
herself
.
For
a
moment
he
found
consolation
in
the
thought
that
,
at
any
cost
,
they
had
thus
been
brought
together
;
then
a
flood
of
shame
rushed
over
him
.
Face
to
face
with
her
,
he
felt
himself
laid
bare
to
the
inmost
fold
of
consciousness
.
The
shame
was
deep
,
but
it
was
a
renovating
anguish
;
he
was
like
a
man
whom
intolerable
pain
has
roused
from
the
creeping
lethargy
of
death
.
.
.
.
He
rose
next
morning
to
as
fresh
a
sense
of
life
as
though
his
hour
of
mute
communion
with
Margaret
Aubyn
had
been
a
more
exquisite
renewal
of
their
earlier
meetings
.
His
waking
thought
was
that
he
must
see
her
again
;
and
as
consciousness
affirmed
itself
he
felt
an
intense
fear
of
losing
the
sense
of
her
nearness
.
But
she
was
still
close
to
him
;
her
presence
remained
the
sole
reality
in
a
world
of
shadows
.
All
through
his
working
hours
he
was
re
-
living
with
incredible
minuteness
every
incident
of
their
obliterated
past
;
as
a
man
who
has
mastered
the
spirit
of
a
foreign
tongue
turns
with
renewed
wonder
to
the
pages
his
youth
has
plodded
over
.
In
this
lucidity
of
retrospection
the
most
trivial
detail
had
its
significance
,
and
the
rapture
of
recovery
was
embittered
to
Glennard
by
the
perception
of
all
that
he
had
missed
.
He
had
been
pitiably
,
grotesquely
stupid
;
and
there
was
irony
in
the
thought
that
,
but
for
the
crisis
through
which
he
was
passing
,
he
might
have
lived
on
in
complacent
ignorance
of
his
loss
.
It
was
as
though
she
had
bought
him
with
her
blood
.
.
.
.
That
evening
he
and
Alexa
dined
alone
.
After
dinner
he
followed
her
to
the
drawing
-
room
.
He
no
longer
felt
the
need
of
avoiding
her
;
he
was
hardly
conscious
of
her
presence
.
After
a
few
words
they
lapsed
into
silence
and
he
sat
smoking
with
his
eyes
on
the
fire
.
It
was
not
that
he
was
unwilling
to
talk
to
her
;
he
felt
a
curious
desire
to
be
as
kind
as
possible
;
but
he
was
always
forgetting
that
she
was
there
Her
full
bright
presence
,
through
which
the
currents
of
life
flowed
so
warmly
,
had
grown
as
tenuous
as
a
shadow
,
and
he
saw
so
far
beyond
her
—
Presently
she
rose
and
began
to
move
about
the
room
.
She
seemed
to
be
looking
for
something
and
he
roused
himself
to
ask
what
she
wanted
.
